Re: “Gay Korea comes out” opinion piece – Ewha’s lesbian club is impossible to miss with their gigantic rainbow banner in the student union building if you walk through campus. I’ve heard of the “Come Together” LGBT society here at Yonsei but can’t say I’ve seen visible signs of it yet. Topic is brought up in the student media now and then though.

At the moment I’m just trying to process how that psychology professor gets work at at big university.

I think it’s a shame that Bae Doona being just about the first Korean(-Korean, not gyopo) to land a serious Western film role is being overshadowed by cries of yellowface. Bae Doona did a great job in the movie, and she got the same make-up treatment to become a white character as well as a Latina. Her character was the most symbolically important in the whole plot, too, even if she didn’t get the most screen time. In the movie during the Neo Seoul arc, her character’s friend at the restaurant (played by a Chinese actress) had the biggest girl-power moment of the whole movie, and incidentally also was made up as a white character later on. It’s true that Korean wasn’t spoken much, outside of Sturgess’s character playing a baedalbu when caught by the cops (which indicates to me that in that fictional world English took over completely as the global prestige language- but anyway). It’s also positive to see Koreans playing Korean characters- unlike G.I. Joe or Ninja Assassin. Furthermore, though the actors were white, the depictions of male Korean heroes were great (even if the makeup was horrible).

Seems like the hullabaloo is that Korean male actors didn’t get a main role, but there are certainly plot-related reasons for it- the actors were chosen based on their primary arc in the story, hence Bae Doona being cast, as her character’s main arc was Neo Seoul. I wonder how much of the controversy has to do with Asian-American concerns about Asian males being mis- or underrepresented in Western media colliding with Korea(ns) wanting every possible exposure in the West, causing Bae’s skillful performance and breakthrough to be overshadowed. I just think it’s quite unfair, considering the plot and also the Wachowskis’ record of being rather progressive.

Out of curiosity, are there any Korean(-Korean) male actors with the chops and language abilities that Bae has, who are also in the age range of Sturgess or Weaving? Korean film has lots of great actors, but I’ve got no clue about the language abilities. Bringing gyopos into the picture, I think Steve Yeun is due for some big screen success.